1. Field of the Invention
This invention is in the field of fixtures and more specifically, those fixtures utilized to bend pieces of wood.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Various types of articles utilize bent pieces of wood. For example, furniture including-chairs may be designed to include a curved or bent wooden pole extending along the back of the furniture or chair. Since it is difficult to obtain a sufficient quantity of uniformly configured wooden trees in the natural state, it is the custom to harvest trees and to then bend the trees into the desired configuration forming the poles.
In the event the harvested wooden tree has an insect such as a beetle living therein, then eventually the bark may loosen relative to the main body of the tree since the beetle will bore into the tree. Of particular nuisance is the powder post beetle which attacks and lives within hickory trees. Beetle eggs typically will not hatch except during the warm or growing season. As a result, it has been the custom to harvest the trees during the winter when the trees are in a dormant state. Trees harvested during the dormant state are dry and brittle requiring the trees to first be subjected to heat thereby destroying any beetle eggs, and then soaked in water thereby increasing the flexibility of the trees and allowing the trees to be bent to the desired configuration. Next it is the practice to heat the trees in the bent configuration while wet setting the final configuration. Harvesting of the trees during the warm growing season has been avoided due to the fear that hatched beetles would attack the trees after the trees are harvested and dead but before heating and bending of the trees to the desired configuration. As a result, the business of harvesting and bending trees has been cyclical occurring during the winter and not during the warm growing season. I have discovered that trees can be harvested during the growing season while in the green state and bent to the desired configuration so long as the trees are bent soon after harvesting while the trees are still green and thus before the eggs are hatched. Since the trees are still green by the time of bending, the initial step of heating and wetting may be avoided with the final heating step accomplishing both the setting of the desired configuration as well as destroying any eggs or insects within the trees.
The prior method of bending dry poles harvested in the dormant state includes use of a fixture for holding a plurality of dry poles arranged in parallel fashion. The fixture includes a single rod which extends perpendicularly across the dry poles with the opposite ends of the rod fastened to the fixture thereby bending the poles. In the event, the dry poles have different diameters then the rod will bend the poles to different curvatures thereby preventing uniformity. The fixture disclosed herein eliminates this disadvantage.